Politico: “gas prices have fallen to levels not seen in decades.” Really? I’d like to see the data behind this claim. apple.news/AYXYDcb5tT3W...

I think this is probably wrong. As I argued here: www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-...

A careful study of every populist episode since 1900 finds catastrophic consequences, which play out slowly. On average, incomes fall behind by nearly 15% over 15 years. For the U.S., this is a cost of about $13k per person per year. Over a lifetime, that's million bucks.

today I am loving the UN Geneva Archives platform which hosts the complete League of Nations archives, digitised, entirely free some archive digitisation programs are very clunky & hard to use, this is immaculate & has an incredibly user friendly interface + excellent metadata

I have a similar reaction to AI used for non-math functions. In history, for instance, it’s great for summarizing arguments and evidence — as long as the accuracy and reliability of those summaries aren’t important. Super useful, for sure. Turns all of us from writers into fact checkers.

History suggests that tariff revenue won’t be so hard to quit.

So much for foreigners paying tariffs. If they did PPI would be falling. Wholesale prices up 3.3% from a year ago & 3.7% in the core. The temperature is definitely rising in the core. This implies a hot PCE reading lies ahead.

A ChatGPT fail for the historians out there

I think the word “finalized” might be part of the problem here.

Ronald Reagan: “A creative, competitive America is the answer to a changing world, not trade wars that would close doors, create greater barriers, and destroy millions of jobs...We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism.” www.forbes.com/sites/taxnot...

Ronald Reagan Would Have Hated Trump’s Tariffs www.taxnotes.com/featured-ana...

The New York Times told us the Democrats lost the last election because people hate inflation, but now they are telling us that they can't score political points by promising to bring prices down by getting rid of the Trump tariffs substack.com/home/post/p-...

A good point. And pretty much the same argument that made income taxes popular in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Did anyone seriously think that corporate America would just eat the tariffs forever? That's not how companies work. (Or tariffs, FWIW.) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/b...

Tariffs were hard to quit in the late 19th and early 20th century, too. And yet they managed. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

These doom scenario predictions about AI would be more convincing if they weren’t so obviously designed as clickbait. www.inc.com/bruce-crumle...

Most regular folks hate bureaucracy but they also like (or at least depend on) institutions, even if they don’t know it.

“The move to reduce these so-called hallucinations is seen as crucial to increase the use of AI tools across industries such as law and health, which require accurate information…” I’m curious about the industries where accuracy is irrelevant.

The 2017 tax bill was bad for Republican politicians. The 2025 law could easily be worse. www.taxnotes.com/featured-ana...

Not sure I buy these predictions, but if they’re even partly right, this will be a transformative political event. CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs - The Wall Street Journal

Internal Revenue Commissioner Joseph D. Nunan, Jr. on vacation in Miami Beach, c. 1945. Despite his penchant for nifty bathing caps, Nunan is better remembered as the only commissioner to be convicted for tax evasion. Photo courtesy of the Truman Library: www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-r...

My new Capitolism @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social‬ celebrates last week's BIG court rulings against the Trump "emergency" tariffs but explains why Congress still needs to do its job & fix US tariff laws: "Trump’s Trade Fight Is Just Getting Warmed Up" thedispatch.com/newsletter/c...

Pat Buchanan Was Trump Before Trump — And a Master of Antitax Politics www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-...

A disappointing story from Marketplace on the history and politics of taxing the rich. Lots of loose talk about rates, effectively conflating marginal/average/effective. Some breezy, basically ok snippets of history. But the rate discussions end up being misleading.

WWRPD? (What Would Randolph Paul Do?)

Thread: New from @taxlawcenter.org: we get in the weeds (footnotes) and also big picture on the section 899 "revenge"/retaliation tax in the House bill that's under active consideration in the Senate. taxlawcenter.org/work/revenge...

Every time I read another story about the gradual dissolution of Paul Weiss, I wonder what the great Randolph Paul — a giant of the 20th century tax bar — would say about his disappearing legacy. www.paulweiss.com/about-the-fi...

I’m old enough to remember when people thought income tax uncertainty was a big problem for business. Who knew tariff uncertainty would be so much more exciting!

If you like keeping your tax returns private, you can thank these hearings

So this is maybe bad too?

This, too, seems bad.

Seems bad www.axios.com/2025/04/26/t...

I don’t know anything about shipping. But it sure seems like a problem might be headed our way. www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/04/...

Might still need those income taxes for a while yet. www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/u...

Seems important www.cnbc.com/2025/04/20/t...

Never thought I'd see such a photo! Probably the same people who opposed TPP in 2016....?

Nixon knew a thing or two about weaponizing the IRS www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-...

Not disagreeing with this sentiment, but political efforts to weaponize the IRS aren't new. The Nixon administration famously targeted left-leaning nonprofits. Also talked about using threats to exemption status to get universities to clamp down on student protests.

How does all this end? Great thread, inc. this gem: "What is certain, however, is that right now, people are scrambling to protect their businesses, their retirements, and their corporate empires. And regardless of what ideology anyone has, when you fuck with people's money, they will fight back"

I mean, they're not wrong about the history

Has anyone ever taken a hard look at Wall Street political analysis? Tried to measure its accuracy? Serious question. I feel like somebody must have tried this.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to use tariffs to coerce Canada into statehood. They gave it a shot in the 1890s, too. It did not go well.

Tariff Blowback #5 "I wonder if it's loaded!" (1903) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

Tariff Blowback #4 An effective battering ram in the hands of the right men www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

Tariff Blowback #3 Nothing Can Keep It Out (1912) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite... (This one explains why Congress adopted an income tax in 1913 -- something Trump says is inexplicable.)

Tariff Blowback #2 A Timely Warning (1903) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

Tariff blowback #1 Picking His Way (1903) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

High tariffs have typically been unpopular with consumers, who end up footing the bill. The unhappiness has been evident in mass media, especially editorial cartoons. I'm going feature some of those cartoons here -- just as a reminder that high tariffs can produce a lot of political blowback.

FWIW, my general assumption is that most of the public has fairly weakly held views on trade policy and fairly strongly held views on cost of living

You could paper every wall of the Ways and Means hearing room with late 19th/early 20th century cartoons complaining about the high tariff.